Courtesy of the artist, Emalin, London and Galerie Sfeir-Semler, Hamburg/Beirut

Photography: Hans-Georg Gaul

Sung Tieu works meld sculpture, drawing, text, sound and video and contrast research with autobiographical query – often revealing the psychological effects of ideological systems and the politics their design principles engender. She has examined how social or political control can be imposed through design – be it of office furniture, household goods or bureaucratic paperwork. Mimicking and exploring the present legacy of Modernism – both art historically and more broadly – Tieu reveals it as an organising force that processes and filters information, often favouring sameness over difference and order over chaos.

For Exposure To Havana Syndrome, Brain Anatomy, Coronal Plane, Tieu exposed herself to a US-made reconstruction of Havana Syndrome, an ostensible sonic attack, to record her cerebral activity and translate it both visually and acoustically. Enquired from the perspective of Tieu's subjectivity and political agency, this self-portrait series questions the legibility of scientific narratives and the reliability of proof-making.

Tieu's series of steel sculptures refer to different generations of prison architecture from the 19th century “radial” prison to the “new-generation” of prisons that emerged in the 1990s. These hard-edged, oblique forms reveal the organisation of space within. Each contains an amount of locally-sourced earth, a material that implies a connection to land whilst also serving as a discrete reference to the presence of national borders.

Starting out from an interest in psychoacoustics, Tieu's works depict how sound can be used as an invasive tool in order to manipulate individual and collective behaviour, beliefs, and desires.

Sung Tieu lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She graduated with a BFA from the University of Fine Arts Hamburg, Germany in 2013 and completed the Postgraduate Programme at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2018. Recent solo exhibitions have been held at Forma (London, 2022); Mudam (Luxembourg, 2022); Kunstverein Gartenhaus (Vienna, 2022); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2021); GfZK Museum for Contemporary Art Leipzig (2021); Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart (Berlin, 2021); Emalin (London, 2020); Nottingham Contemporary (2020); and Haus der Kunst (Munich, 2020). Tieu’s work has recently been included in group exhibitions held at Kunst Museum Winterthur (2022); Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art (Oslo, 2022); Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, NL, 2022); X Museum, (Beijing, 2021); Kunstverein Hannover (2021); Taipei Fine Arts Museum (2021);  Museion (Bolzano, 2021); 34th Bienal de São Paulo (2021);  Kunsthalle Basel (2021); GAMeC Museum (Bergamo, 2020); and Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart (Berlin, 2020).

Sung Tieu is the recipient of the Frieze Artist Award (2021) and Ars Viva Award for Visual Art (2021) and was shortlisted for the Prize of the National Gallery (Preis der Nationalgalerie), Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart (2021). Sung Tieu is currently a guest professor at Städelschule, Frankfurt. Her work is included in the permanent collections of Bundeskunstsammlung; GfZK - Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig; Museion Bolzano; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate, London.

Upcoming solo exhibitions will be held at CAPC - Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux (2023); MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, MA, 2023); Amant (New York, NY, 2023); and Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2024).